Best Buy's Geek Squad: Conquest of Branding Over Competence
Warning - Using the Geek Squad May Be Harmful to Your Computer
Computers have become so crucial in our lives and when things go wrong it is like becoming seriously ill. So naturally your instinct is to seek professional help. But the Geek Squad does seem to adhere to the wisdom of health professionals: first do no harm.
One of the Geek Squad's standard services is called data transfer. Simply put, copy data from an old computer to a new one. For that they charge plenty. So what might be the worst case scenario or nightmare of having the Geek Squad come to your home to perform this job. Think a minute. What happened to me is that they destroyed the hard drive of my old computer and I lost the hard drive in it and, worse yet, lost over five years of all kinds of data and files.
And an interesting aspect of the Geek Squad business model is that if something bad happens and you have to bring something into a Best Buy store they do not allow their agents to physically take anything back to their store. In my case, I had to take back my old computer box, wait several days and then learn that they had destroyed my hard drive and data.
Were they so sorry that they accepted blame and responsibility? Did these military-style geeks offer compensation? No and no. They acted as if somehow it was a strange coincidence that the hard drive died exactly when their agent had removed it from my old computer, tried but failed to connect it to the new computer (that I bought at Best Buy) and then discovered when he put it back into the old computer that it no longer worked. And let me emphasize that when the agent let me know that he intended to remove the hard drive from my old computer that I was very concerned about the risk of doing that - but he insisted that there was no risk. So much for Geek Squad military-style competence.
Oh, I forgot to mention that initially the agent never showed up at the appointed time; I had to go through the hell of dealing with the military-style 800 number headquarters system to reschedule. Guess what - next time at the appointed time when I expected a knock on the door I got a phone call saying the agent would be two hours late. What happened to all that military precision?
So fellow consumers BEWARE of the slick advertising and military lingo you get from the Geek Squad. They are more like fumbling, incompetent screwups.
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Published by Joel Hirschhorn
Author: Delusional Democracy, Prosperity Without Pollution & Sprawl Kills. Senior official Congressional Office of Technology Assessment & National Governors Assn; full prof Univ. of Wisc. Publishing regul... View profile
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- Never Mind the Clip-On Ties, Geek Squad Can Fix Your PC found on NYTimes Online.Father Dan: Why Best Buy and Geek Squad Suck found on Daniel Curran.com
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340 Comments
Post a CommentWonderful to see comments still flowing in to my article. Here is the only way to fix the GS business: demand a clear guarantee that if the problem is not fixed to the customer's satisfaction there will be no charge (or money returned) AND if any equipment/hardware/software is damaged it will be replaced by new identical equipment, no matter what the cost.
I have a love / hate relationship with all the "Geek" companies. I love them because I get a lot of business cleaning up after the messes they create. I hate them because I have a conscience and do this cleanup work for a fraction of my normal rate because customers already overpaid the "Geeks" for the poor service. If the "Geeks" are insulted so be it...maybe you can use this as an incentive to get more real world experience before entering the marketing machine and screwing customers. Then again, if you were any good you would be working on your own or for a company that has a selective hiring practice. I'm sure they are some good people working at these companies but they are few and far between.
Potomac Computer Services
http://www.potomacpctech.com
Never, never trust a Geed Squad. I purchased a new HP computer that had a terrible keyboard. Exchanged it for a better Sony, pretty nice unit. They verbally told me they would remove all my information from my hp to the new Sony. They didn't do it and tried to shake me down to take it off of an older drive I had that was damaged two weeks ago. ABSOLUTELY DON'T TRUST ANYTHING THEY TELL YOU. ESPCIALLY IN THE STORE IN SPRINGFIELD, OREGON.
Everyone on here complaining about the Geek Squad being naive and incompetent is either equally or more so naive/incompetent.
Who would ever pay someone $200 to fix a computer unless? You're the morons in the first place.
im trying to download a printer to my labtop where do i find the copy of the printer xerox 3400 printer
Honestly, I can see where this can be frustrating. You cannot generalize a company based on certain experiences. I will admit that I have met many geeks that do not know the difference between an IDE and SATA but NOT ALL Geek Squad Agents are illiterate in technology. I am Geek Squad agent and I can fix almost all software and hardware issues. I actually went to college and got a bachelors in computer science. I just work at the Geek Squad for now to put my foot in the door of the technology world of business. FOR FURTHER REFERENCE ON THE GEEK SQUAD, research a little about your problem and then ask an agent in the store for help. See for yourself if the Agent knows anything about what you are talking about. If the agent can not answer your questions, take it somewhere else. We are trained to sale like car salesmen, but we are not in any way based on commission. When you talk to an agent, research a little on what that agent said before making your decision. If you are unsure about let
Having just ended a fruitless quest to get even a modicum of satisfaction from a July "repair" gone terribly wrong (in Plano, TX) a few hours ago, I agree with the writer completely. Not only is GS a triumph of image over substance, but its "customer service" is dreadful. My vow to never deal with GS or BB won't hurt them, but perhaps others will think twice before paying the GS inflated rates for shabby work.
If they are so incompetent why didnt you do it yourself ? Because you don't know anything about computers, and yet you speculate on how bad they can be. There is always a risk when you leave you computer to anybody, we often receive laptops back from repair from hp no preloaded os and sometimes more scratches, sometimes a broken LCD. But you, you complain about your DATA.. Do you even realize how much we don't care ? Don't tell me the Geek squad did not offer you to backup your data before transferring your hard-drive for 89$, we are always pleased to do so, and you said no. So if you read carefully behind the contract you signed, on which you had three checkbox to check, the first that says: "I made a backup of all my important data", the second says: "I require a backup of my data" and the third says: "I acknowledge that the data backup is not covered by any warranty whatsoever" it cleary says: "WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR YOU DATA, EVEN IF WE PROVIDE A BACKUP", So you hard-drive was
Actually I don't see a poor attitude coming from them at all, they are simply trying to show that there are two sides to every story and that people should not post overgeneralized statements about an entire company and the people that work for that company just because they had a bad experience that they probably caused in the first place, just saying.
Geek Squad is completely incompetent--employees can try to defend their company as much as they like, but consumer complaints speak volumes. The poor attitude from the "employees" posting here reveals it all.